


Tell the Whole Truth

by soda_coded



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Animal Death, Bullying, Conversations, Gen, Pet Sematary AU, Urban Legends, Wendigo Hannibal Lecter, Young Will Graham
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23165227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soda_coded/pseuds/soda_coded
Summary: Pet Sematary re-imagining, with wendigo!Hannibal
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	Tell the Whole Truth

"Ah, I wouldn't do that if I were you, young man."

Will startled, foot slipping on the thick branch he'd chosen. He ignored the words, and jammed his foot further into the old beaver dam, ignoring everything his father had ever told him about snakes. It took him thirty minutes to get this far, and he was only a fourth of the way. He looked up, grey blue eyes filling with a pre-storm sky. The top was so far.

He'd tried finding a way around, but everywhere else was too steep for a grown person to scale easily, which meant Will didn't stand a chance. Not with his arm in the cast, and Winston on his back. He reached up for the next easy branch.

"Young man." The cultured voice was a whip crack this time, and Will froze instinctively. He didn't recognize the voice, and only now did that thought fill him with dull fear. Will knew next to everybody in town, now that he was helping out after school at the shop. It didn't pay much, but Mr. Lorenzo was always willing to feed him and always let him go to the back and restock if he got overwhelmed. Or if Chilton came in.

Still, no fear was enough to change his mind. Otherwise he wouldn't be here. Will pulled his hand back, rearranged the strap across his chest, made of thickly knotted sheet, the only thing he could find in the thirty minutes he had before his Dad came home. Winston wouldn't fit in a backpack.

Reached for the same thick branch, and the man spoke again.

"Wait… just." He sounded unsettled for the first time, each word coming quickly after the next. "Not that branch? It has a rather large crack. Try the one just above you."

Will was already sweating, and Margot had told him it took a while to walk to the place with the stacked rocks, even once you got to the top. He couldn’t afford to fall, and start over. There was always the chance that this was one of the rare nights his dad wouldn’t just eat the food he’d left in the microwave with a few beers, and pass out. Or that Mr. Lorenzo would call and tell him he’d never turned up, and then his dad could call the cops, maybe, and then half the town would be looking for him. He looked up again, and gripped the slimmer branch overhead instead.

It held his weight easily, bending without breaking, and Will pulled his foot back out of the dam to gain a few more precious inches.

“May I at least ask why you are doing this?” The voice continued and Will would remember this voice, deep and cultured, the rolling consonants, hard vowels. It sounded closer, and Will turned his head trying to see him, but the angle- the weight on his back- his tight grip on the dam all kept him from succeeding. He could feel his neck sweating. “If I am supposed to ignore a young boy engaging in something so dangerous.”

Most adults would have just grabbed him by now. Even at thirteen, Will wasn’t big enough to put up much of a fight… On good days he told himself that was why Fred and Francis always took after him, Matt laughing in the background. He knew it wasn’t, really. 

Will knew he was strange. Too quiet, even when he tried not to be and he couldn’t ever make himself look into their eyes-

Whatever. If the stranger wasn’t going to try and stop him, Will would talk. Nothing mattered anymore. Not looks, or whispers, or if his dad would be okay alone at home. 

“I have to get to the pet cemetery.” Will said succinctly. Swung out, and when no warnings came, grabbed the next branch, hauling him further up. The buzz of cicadas hummed in the trees all around him, dizzying. 

“I had thought  _ this _ was a pet cemetery.” The man said, polite confusion coloring his voice. He sounded so unconcerned for all his persistence. “The sign- “

“The real one.” Will huffed. Pulled himself up a little more. A little more. Slow but steady, so steady and maybe Will was dumb, and distracted, and too quiet and always smelled like bait from working after school, but he could do this. He would do this. For Winston.

“And why would you need that?”

Again, he sounded curious, not alarmed. Will braced one knee- took another step up. He was sweating hard now.

“My dog was… he died.” Will said. No matter how curious adults seemed, they never actually wanted to hear how things were. “I need to bury him. Why else would I need a cemetery?”

The man bit out a short laugh and something about the sound went through Will like a gunshot. He shivered. Took another step.

“Why else, indeed.” The man said. “Surely, however, there is space down here, and it’s certainly safer. Why do you need the ‘real one’?”

Will sighed. Freed one hand to shift his pack again, careful that his knot work was still tight, and then rubbed his eyes. God, he was tired. Been up all night, worried about Winston. No matter what Dad said, Winston wouldn’t have run. Seeing Will was the best part of his day… and now-

Will shook his head. No. Not for long. And if Dad drowned in his puke while he was gone, he’d just carry him here too. The thought made Will smile grimly and he picked up his pace as he answered the unseen man.

“You really aren’t from around here, are you?” He called.

“Actually, I have been in this area for some time.” He answered. “Though I am originally from Europe.”

“Well, if you ever came to town, you’d have heard about the Sematary.” Will said, even though he wasn’t sure really. He’d heard rumors for years after they moved here, but if Margot hadn’t found him, he’d never have known where to go. He’d still been able to hear the wheel on his bike, spinning frantically, where he’d dropped it on the dirt lawn. Winston was cold in his arms, blood wetting the dirt, and Will’s bare knees where he knelt beside him.

He’d been able to hear his bike, but not Margot’s soft approach.

“Or maybe not.” He amended, in case the man did come to town, and just, nobody liked him. “Anyway. It’s. It’s supposed to…”

He faltered, feeling stupid and childish saying it out loud.

“Bring them back?” The man said, so softly his voice carrying near impossibly, and Will nodded. He was almost to the top, but this was the hardest part, because of the way the dam swole at the top, like a cresting wave. A hard task, made almost impossible because of the limp weight on his back.

He’d had to wrap Winston in plastic to keep him from leaking. Margot had helped. She was the coolest girl Will had ever met. Washed their hands with his hose. She’d refused to go with, though. Will couldn’t blame her.

“Yeah.” He said. “She said it’ll bring him back.”

“What if he comes back… different.” The man said something about his voice making it not a question, and Will paused for a moment. Stepped up again.

“Doesn’t matter.” He said resolutely. That’s what everyone said about him anyway. That he was different. Weird. Violent. Just because he’d bit Frederick on the cheek- they didn’t know- “He was still my dog.”

“What is truly ours?” The man said. Continued when Will simply carried on with his slow ascent. “What if he’s wrong? Aggressive-”

“Then we kill ‘em together.” Will said recklessly, panting. Swung his leg over the top of the dam, swinging his whole body to insure Winston made the climb too. They’d come too far to leave him behind now. “He’ll go low, I’ll go high.”

He clambered to his feet, surprised at how quickly it went from branch to land. As though the beavers had put that there on purpose… Will thinks of the clean cut ends to all those jutting branches and wondered if beavers had anything to do with it at all. Turned around, to finally get a look at the man… but the Sematary below him was empty.

Weird. Normally he saw things, not heard them.


End file.
